New External Frame – MYOG

Have you thought about making a mold of your lower back and hips that you could then use to form a fiberglass/carbon fiber/heat formed plastic hip belt or harness? What I am thinking is that if you can make a hard cast of yourself you could make a form fitting belt and possibly eliminate a lot of padding.

Having a torso mold would make sizing packs easier I would imagine.

There are lots of life casting tutorials on the net.

Sorry if this has been mentioned already elsewhere.

Eric,
Those were pretty much along the lines of what I had planned. I have casting plaster coming in to form the mold and then plan on trying to make the tooling off that.

Hope to post some good photos soon!

Kevin

Kevin, Very cool. Cant wait to see how it comes together.

Ever since I had a computer body scan at Brooks Brothers in NY and saw my body in wireframe 3D I've been thinking about how many different ways you can put this to use.

For a business I was considering taking 3D body scans and cutting them from foam using 3 axis CNC and then coating them with polyurea to give them a hard surface. How cool would it be to have a human form for custom clothing and gear? I think cool, but I'm into the tech side of it.

With a good form you could vacuum form a piece of plastic very easily to produce a secondary form that could be sent a custom pack builder or otherwise.

Some of my thoughts around using a form like this come from watching my sister build prosthetics and body braces for injuries etc. I've seen people who have a hard plastic torso brace that makes them look like a human hard suitcase. clasps and all.

Casting material JUST came in BUT I wouldn't have to make a mold off my body IF I had a foam back/torso !!! If only they existed. I'm sure making them wouldn't be cheap either!
I'm going more for the generic approach as I plan on doing at least a 1.0" offset to the mold to try and make it fit more bodies and give some room for the "air pad" as Bill states. If I can make the shape close enough to form fitting, I'm thinking you could use a lot less padding as you shouldn't have as many hot spots? We will see ??

I was going to say use plastering strips to make a mold, reinforce it, and use expanding foam sealant to cast 2 halves?

One small problem is that your body is in a different position without a pack, especially if laying down to make the molds.